Yeah it's hard to say. Something someone quoted justin saying seemed to imply that it may be different for each set. Which would make a lot of sense. I've though about delving into cracking it but it would take more time than I'm willing to devote. The math wizards out there should have cracked it pretty easily by now I would have thought. Once you can figure out the cost of some things you can begin to eliminate them and figure out the cost of others. It's just finding out those costs. I have realized that stats may be fractions of a point as far a point cost goes.

Obviously I'm thinking faster then I type again.

I guess some powers might only be fractions of a point as well. I think grounded/neutralized may even be negative points. Sorry just thought I would think out loud so to speak.

There was an old forumula floating around, but every new set is broke until somebody tweaked it each time.

Then somebody who worked on such things had an epiphany as to how the formula worked, and WK asked him (nicely) not to pursue. Thus implying that his new thinking was getting close, and the old thinking about the formula was wrong.

Some things for sure:
Stats are cheaper than powers
Clicks of life are more expensive than powers
runs of powers are more expensive then single instances
Special powers and traits are assigned in some way that ends up making them better

And my own speculation:
Some production errors probably throw off the values of some older figures

If you compare old dials to new ones, they have far fewer clicks of life on average, and I think that the savings from that is used to pump up stats, already a cheap element of the forumla. Then factor in the random cost of special powers and traits that may be awsome, the non-sequential appearance of some powers, and thus Power Creep is achieved without necessarily breaking the formula.

I'm pretty sure that dial placement figured in there as well - e.g., first click Incap was more expensive than fourth click Incap.

I was just under the assumption that they threw numbers in a hat and drew point totals

I'm not so sure clicks of life are more expensive than powers. It may be more or less than various powers but not all powers. It may be on a scale like two points for one click three points for two. It's really hard to say exactly. I'll bring up two figures for comparison and the point difference between the two is fairly odd.

Well, R Swamp Thing from HT is certainly an outlier at 73 points for 11 clicks of life, but I think they were still working out the bugs at that time.

My observation isn't scientific, but if you look and new dials compared to old, the stats are better but the dials are shorter. Perhaps the comparison to powers is not right, but I think clicks of life must have some significant effect on cost.

These two. The 9 point difference is hard to figure. Powers wise spidey-thor seems to have more powers and an additional click of life but only 9 points more. Is one over costed and one under costed. A little of both. I know for sure special powers are a guess or don't always account for much. They just seem odd in comparison.

si001 E Spider-Man
Team: Spider-Man
Range: 6
Points: 50
Keywords: Avengers, Fantastic Four, Reporter, Scientist

9 10 17 3

9 10 17 3

8 9 17 2

8 9 16 2

8 8 16 2

8 8 15 3

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

(Attack) Web-Punch: Spider-Man can use Flurry. If he makes two successful attacks against the same target using Flurry, instead of dealing damage with the second attack he can instead give an action token to the target if it has zero or one action token.

ha048 R Spider-Man
Team: No Affiliation
Range: 6
Points: 59
Keywords: Asgardian, Teen

8 10 17 2

8 9 17 2

8 9 16 2

6 8 16 2

6 9 15 2

6 10 15 3

6 10 14 3

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

Hey, it's not that I hate her, it's just that I don't care for her womanly parts.

I won't argue that. I could see them being more than some powers but not all powers. Like I said some things may be a fractions of a point or negative. I would think clicks of life would account for whole points. So your observation isn't completely off as far as I would guess.

The problem is finding samples that are spot on.

Your wife, much like Darla in the referenced series, is the exception.


Also, I still stand by the name due to the original poster's proclivity in relationships.

I meant it to be funny and I hope he took it that way.

(Fighting urge for a "She looks good in a tux" joke...)